Even by the reality-TV chaos standards of our political moment, this one was a doozy: Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Defense, called out as an "abuser of women" by his own mother in the pages of the New York Times. To be fair, Penelope Hegseth's 2018 email excoriating her son, who was then a Fox News contributor, was not intended for public consumption. But the email, which seems to have been passed around Hegseth's social circle at the time, was leaked to the Times over the weekend. In it, Penelope Hegseth calls her son a man who "belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego." Pete Hegseth, then 37 years old, was in the midst of his second divorce.
While Penelope Hegseth has since disavowed her 2018 declaration, those accusations were backed up by a New Yorker investigation showcasing years of complaints from colleagues that Hegseth ran his veterans organization in "a hostile and intimidating working environment," where sexual harassment — and even attempted sexual assault — was blown off or blamed on victims. Hegseth himself was characterized as a heavy drinker who "treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account — for partying, drinking, and using [the organization's] events as little more than opportunities to ‘hook up’ with women on the road." This follows reports that Hegseth was accused of rape in 2017. Criminal charges were not filed, but Hegseth reportedly reached a financial settlement with the alleged victim in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.
